Trevisker Primary School

Store Street Manchester M1 2WD T 0300 123 4234 www.gov.uk/ofsted

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Mrs Kaye Pitcher Executive Headteacher Trevisker Primary School Warwick Crescent St Eval Wadebridge Cornwall PL27 7UD

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Short inspection of Trevisker Primary School

Following my visit to the school on 23 May 2019, I write on behalf of Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Education, Children’s Services and Skills to report the inspection findings. The visit was the first short inspection carried out since your predecessor school was judged to be good in April 2013.

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Short inspection of Trevisker Primary School

The leadership team has maintained the good quality of education in the school since the last inspection. You have nurtured a strong and reflective staff team. You are all equally passionate about putting children at the heart of your decision- making. Leaders at all levels are enthusiastic in promoting a love of learning, underpinned by a thoughtful, considered curriculum. Pupils demonstrate positive attitudes towards learning, one saying, for example, ‘we never stop learning’. Staff are skilful in providing a curriculum that promotes opportunities for pupils to make links between subjects. The classroom environments support this work well. The curriculum is designed to encourage consideration of local, national and global issues. For example, Year 4 pupils are learning more about their local county of Cornwall.

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Short inspection of Trevisker Primary School

To improve the school’s performance further, you have evolved and implemented new approaches to bring about the improvements you seek. You are adamant that you will only implement approaches that will have the intended impact. You carry out due diligence by researching programmes and visiting other schools to investigate their impact. You work with schools within and beyond the trust to share ideas and collaborate with other staff.

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Short inspection of Trevisker Primary School

Pupils behave well and enjoy school. They speak knowledgeably about the ‘Trevisker Virtues’, which serve as a reminder of how to be a valued member of the school community. Pupils are positive about their lessons and the opportunities available to them. They value adults’ efforts to consider their well-being, particularly during end-of-key-stage assessments. Over time, pupils’ attendance has improved and is now closer to national averages. However, persistent absence is not reducing.

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Short inspection of Trevisker Primary School

Representatives from the trust, under the scheme of delegation, have asked the local governing body to focus principally on safeguarding, education standards, including provision for pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities and stakeholders. Representatives from the trust have an accurate evaluation of the school and play a proactive role in ensuring that the school retains its effectiveness as a good school. The trust promotes the school’s engagement with other schools, both locally and nationally, as a method of securing further improvements.

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Short inspection of Trevisker Primary School

Governors have detailed information at hand to ensure that they have a strong and accurate understanding of the school’s performance. They assure themselves that leaders’ actions and setting of priorities are appropriately focused, based on information about what pupils know, can do and understand. Governors use precise information to ask leaders pertinent questions about the impact of their actions. Governors play a proactive role in the school and follow up actions that leaders have identified as areas for improvement.

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Short inspection of Trevisker Primary School

Leaders conduct rigorous, robust checks on staff before they commence employment. Leaders store the information from these checks on the school’s single central register. Leaders and governors regularly check and maintain this to ensure that it remains compliant and up to date.

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Short inspection of Trevisker Primary School

Leaders ensure that staff are up to date with training and guidance from the Secretary of State. Staff are vigilant when identifying concerns about pupils’ welfare and communicate these effectively with designated leaders for safeguarding in the school. Staff use appropriate detail when logging concerns and form a chronology of events. Leaders consider these chronologies when deciding what action should they should take, including involving external agencies.

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Short inspection of Trevisker Primary School

Leaders and governors have an accurate understanding of the school’s safeguarding culture. They have identified, through the schools’ self-audit tool, areas for improvement, wasting no time in securing these improvements.

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Inspection findings

 First, I considered how well teachers support middle-attaining key stage 2 pupils to make strong progress in reading. Over time, middle-attaining pupils have made less progress than their peers. Leaders have also identified this as an area for improvement and have been acting on improving this aspect of the school’s performance since the beginning of the academic year.  Staff are highly skilled in promoting reading. They show enthusiasm for books and successfully pass this on to the pupils in their class. Staff expose pupils to high-quality texts by established authors, such as ‘The Wreck of the Zanzibar’, by Michael Morpurgo. Staff ask pupils probing questions to determine how well they have understood the books they have read. Pupils value the chance to be ‘lost’ in a book and savour a cliffhanging moment making it hard to put the book down. In lessons, pupils state that teachers are very good at building suspense during

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Inspection findings

storytelling and they are free to imagine the scene as the plot develops.  Pupils are overwhelmingly positive about reading. In lessons, they access high- quality, challenging texts which promote rich vocabulary. They use their in-depth knowledge of the books they have read to influence their own writing and recognise how best to make their own writing more interesting. Pupils speak passionately about a range of authors and offer examples of ways in which their reading experiences at school have informed their own independent reading choices. One pupil told me how she is currently reading ‘Why the Whales Came’, by Michael Morpurgo, through her love of the class text. Pupils make links between books they have read and are able to identify similarities and differences, as well as commenting on the authors’ choice of language.  Pupils reel off their favourite books and authors with confidence. They make clear

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Inspection findings

the reasons for their choices and demonstrate how they have read a range of books from authors’ backlist. Pupils benefit from the school’s book club, where they can discuss quality texts with peers and adults. This culminates in a book review which pupils display in the school library for their peers to read. Leaders’ efforts to promote reading are paying off. Reading is at the heart of the school’s curriculum. Pupils value reading and make strong progress from their starting points.  Second, I considered how well higher-attaining pupils are making progress from their starting points in mathematics. Over the last two years, higher-attaining pupils have made less progress than their peers. The proportion of pupils working at the higher standard by the end of key stages 1 and 2 was below national averages in 2017 and 2018.  Leaders have recently implemented a new approach to how staff teach mathematics across the school. They carried out thorough checks on the

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Inspection findings

programme to ensure that it aligned with the school’s approach to promoting learning as well as improving the quality of mathematics teaching across the school. Although the approach is still relatively new, there is an established and consistent approach across the school.  Pupils access a varied diet of mathematics, developing their fluency, reasoning and knowledge of problem-solving. Pupils engage well in mathematics and are already familiar with the new approach. Teachers throw down the gauntlet of challenge to pupils. Pupils are keen to rise to the challenge, tackling questions with confidence. If pupils find something difficult, they have seamless access to a range of physical resources to help them.  The mathematics leader is knowledgeable about her subject. She is aware that the school’s approach is still relatively new and staff will require ongoing support as they familiarise themselves with the new materials. Leaders anticipate, based

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Inspection findings

on consideration of early indicators, that pupils’ knowledge will rapidly increase, and are already considering how best the mathematics leader can provide further stretch and challenge for pupils going forward. She would like more opportunities to monitor how well the approach is taking root, so she can then drive forward further improvements. In a short time, pupils’ progress is improving, and more are working at the higher standard.  Finally, I considered how well leaders’ actions have brought about improvements in pupils’ early reading and their knowledge of phonics. Since 2016, the proportion of pupils meeting the standard expected in the phonics screening check has been above national averages.  There is a consistent approach to the teaching of phonics across the school. Pupils are clear of the expectations and are familiar with the school’s approach to teaching them about letters and the sounds they make. Staff sort pupils into

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Inspection findings

groups, according to their prior knowledge and emerging needs. Some of these groups meet outside the classroom environment. In classrooms, pupils have regular access to visual cues which support them to recall key sounds and knowledge. However, pupils learning elsewhere do not have the same access. This limits their ability to self-correct and to remind themselves how sounds look in print.  Pupils have regular opportunities to practise their reading. They revisit sounds they have previously learned, before moving on to new, unfamiliar sounds. Adults encourage pupils to identify these sounds in words, so they become familiar with that sound in context. Adults provide pupils with reading books, so they can practise the sounds they have been learning. However, occasionally these books lack challenge. Books include too many of the sounds pupils learned in earlier stages of the phonics programme. This restricts them from being able to practise

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Inspection findings

the new sounds they have learned in lessons.

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Next steps for the school

Leaders and those responsible for governance should ensure that they:

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Next steps for the school

 closely monitor the new approach to mathematics to ensure that pupils continue to make strong progress from their starting points, so a greater proportion of pupils are working at the standard expected and at the higher standard  secure greater consistency in the quality of teaching phonics and ensure that pupils read books that match the sounds they have practised  lower persistent absence so it is line with, or less than national averages.

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Next steps for the school

I am copying this letter to the chair of the governing body and the chief executive officer or equivalent of the multi-academy trust, the regional schools commissioner and the director of children’s services for Cornwall. This letter will be published on the Ofsted website.

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Information about the inspection

At the beginning of the inspection, I met with the head of school and the executive headteacher to discuss their current improvement priorities and their evaluation of the school’s performance. We then made visits to lessons. These included phonics lessons, mathematics lessons and reading lessons. I met with the subject leaders for phonics, mathematics and reading to discuss their actions and consider school leaders’ information about pupils’ progress.

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Information about the inspection

Alongside the head of school and the executive headteacher, I scrutinised pupils’ mathematics books to consider how well pupils make progress. I also met with eight pupils from key stage 2 to discuss their reading experiences.

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Information about the inspection

I met with the designated leader and deputy designated leader for safeguarding and representatives from the governing body. I also met with the chief executive officer from The Learning Academy Trust. Additionally, I scrutinised various safeguarding records, including the record of concerns about pupils’ well-being.

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Information about the inspection

I took account of 25 parent and carer responses to Parent View, Ofsted’s online survey. I also considered 11 responses to the pupil survey and one response to the staff survey.

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